P2P downloads outshine digital sales 20:1

The past eight years has been a struggle between the music industry and P2P downloads. Since Napster launched in 1999 and brought the peer-to-peer downloads to the mainstream, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry, more commonly known as IFPI, has been trying to stop the P2P revolution. Despite some radical acts to regain momentum for legit music downloads the recording industry is suffering a spiral downwards.

Digital sales have grown immensely and iTunes alone has sold more than 3 billion songs since the 2003 it launched. However, to put it in perspective the same amount of songs are being transferred each quarter of a year in P2P networks, and that doesn't include the downloads from the likes of BitTorrent and Usenet, reports Slyck News.

During last year, Internet Service Providers (ISP) have been under pressure. Even with the "get out of jail free"-card of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which protects the ISPs from being responsible for the illegal traffic in their networks, some companies including US giant AT&T have voluntarily started to control their network traffic. The same goes for some European countries, one of which is France.

After the nearly ten years of battling it's becoming a fight for life and death with the last line of defense consisting of ISPs. This can be seen in comments by the Chairman of IFPI, John Kennedy: "2007 was the year ISP responsibility started to become an accepted principle. 2008 must be the year it becomes reality."

20 user comments

this story is more propaganda to lean consumers toward thinking copyright infringement is the industry's main problem. it seems they've fooled at&t and the whole country of france. their refusal to adopt digital distribution is the real problem; the big 4 know that internet-based download services can only carry them so far.

the stats they can't really find out are just how many of those p2p downloads are by small-time bootleggers. i'd be willing to bet a majority of the downloads are being burnt to cd's and sold to people who would buy the tracks online legally, if only they had the broadband access to make it worthwhile.

the music industry won't make the new format available to the masses, so most people just bypass them and go for bootlegs on the old standard. it's their own fault.

They still dont get it that even if it is 20:1 it does not mean that even if there was no p2p ppl would not buy 20 times more. There are alot of ppl who just download a song to listen it once and then remove it. Kinda like you can listen tracks in (most) music store before buing. Not everyone who listens the track in store is going to buy it.
Some will just download their hdd full of crap and newer listen/watch half what they have downloaded so it is pointless to think those are loosed sales. Luckyly most countries wont allow isp to watch out their customers. if they would next step would be place gps, gprs and microphone under everyones skin.

Enough of this Gestapo crap..
The ISPs should not be forced into monitoring their own traffic, it's not only an invasion of privacy and basic cyber-rights but also completely useless when trying to track down Torrent Uploaders and filesharers on P2P networks.

Quote:Digital sales have grown immensely and iTunes alone has sold more than 3 billion songs since the 2003 it launched. However, to put it in perspective the same amount of songs are being transferred each quarter of a year in P2P networks, and that doesn't include the downloads from the likes of BitTorrent and Usenet, reports Slyck News.

You can't put anything in perspective with that statement. Because you don't know how many people are buying any of the songs that they really like, or buying the CD. Or how many people delete half the crap they download. There is probably a small percentage of people who hoard lossless audio on TB's of HDD's for there own personal collection. They need to see P2P for what it really is. A free advertising medium for artists.

This is the beginning of a new precedent of "control". Just like in those futuristic movies, where one needs a license to have kids, special permission to drive out of state, lifetime banning (kinda like AD and me) for one single offense, etc. I can see the possibility of identity cross-checking using SS#, License#, D.O.B. to even access the net EVER. What this world needs is a plague. IF I am struck down by the plague that eliminates 4 billion people then so be it.............I accept that. But control is the inevitable result of over-population. Time Warner has already jumped on the Hitler train to controlland with their bandwidth capping. That is just senseless.

"For clearly not in any and every body
Can mind and can intelligence exist."
-Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, book five

Unbelievable.

After commissioning a 2005 study from LEK Consulting that showed collegiate file-swappers were responsible for 44 percent of movie studio "losses" to piracy, the MPAA then used the report it bought to bludgeon Congress into considering legislation to address this massive problem. Now the MPAA admits that the report's conclusions weren't even close to being right; collegiate piracy accounts for only 15 percent of "losses." Oops. And that's assuming you believe the rest of the data.

The Associated Press broke the news today; apparently, the MPAA is busy notifying government and education officials about the blunder, which may explain why it's too busy to post a mea culpa to its web site. The group blames "human error" for the calculation problem.

They delude people into believing that the threat is much larger than it is and love to play on people's minds and emotions; they extort people into settling cases by sheer numbers/resources they have and band together with other film/electronic giants to overwhelm people with corporate influence.

Same thing like a Mobster walking into a Pizza Palour warning them that they should pay protection otherwise they "might" get vandalized by local hoodlums.

if an ISP can be responsible for what a user downloads and can be penalized for it, then the government (in the country this law will apply to) should also be responsible for drunk drivers. After all, they provide the road service they driver uses.

...and the gun makers should be responsible for any death related to guns....and McDonald's should be paying for my daughters weight watcher program....cigarette companies should be charged for cancer deaths...and so on....

ISP's should not be responsible. Sure they can take certain measures, but the hackers will always be on TOP. Always....

if an ISP can be responsible for what a user downloads and can be penalized for it, then the government (in the country this law will apply to) should also be responsible for drunk drivers. After all, they provide the road service they driver uses.

...and the gun makers should be responsible for any death related to guns....and McDonald's should be paying for my daughters weight watcher program....cigarette companies should be charged for cancer deaths...and so on....

ISP's should not be responsible. Sure they can take certain measures, but the hackers will always be on TOP. Always....

P2P will always outstrip legit sales for 2 reasons:
1. Choice: No one wants to pay for something they don't want, eg. an album full of rubbish B-sides sold on the strength of one or two decent tracks. P2P allows for instant access to what you want when you want it.
2. Pricing: Cinema/CD/DVD/game pricing is ridiculous. $15, $30, $40 & $120 (AUST) price tags [respectively] are far too excessive & cannot be justified irrespective of the products' quality. The generally affluent existences that those who are associated with these areas lead (ie. actors, directors, musicians, developers...) vindicates this point. No amount of bleating about how much an industry is losing profit-wise can hold water when said industry rakes in so much anyway.

Until pricing falls more into correlation with product quality & the consumer's economic capabilities people will always opt for the cheaper alternative.... & so they should!

Until itunes ect drops their prices and increases the quality p2p will be attractive to too many persons. Downloaded music should be much cheaper than a CD. eMusic sells high quality tunes for 4 per dollar. However they do not sell mainstream artists.

IPSs ARE hunting down BT users and will cancel their subscriptions if they do not stop. They are starting with the worst offenders. Normal persons may down load huge quanities but do not upload much. BT users upload much more than a normal user. The IPSs zero in on the high upload users and monitor what they are doing. They can tell what files you are down loading/uploading. Cox has implemented this. I 'talked to' someone that was caught. He was nabbed after a busy week. I suggest if you use BT, be selective about what you download. The less you do, the longer you will stay under the radar. The IPSs have a vested interest in cutting down BT traffic since it accounts for over half the network traffic the world wide and as high as 80% in Asia.

I am sure P2P is hitting sales hard but most downloads do not equate to lost sales. People always line up for free samples but rarely pick up the product. Just because they pick something up for free does not mean they would be willing to pay for it. They will only pay if they think the product is worth the price.

Originally posted by Mez: I am sure P2P is hitting sales hard but most downloads do not equate to lost sales. People always line up for free samples but rarely pick up the product. Just because they pick something up for free does not mean they would be willing to pay for it. They will only pay if they think the product is worth the price.

they statistics they can't (or won't) quote are the ones that (probably) show how digital sales independent artists have considerably increased in the face off p2p downloading growth.

Many of the independent artists allow eMusic to hawk their wares. eMusic is much cheaper and the music has extremely high bit rates. Oh and eMusic is doing very well selling mostly no-names. So many independents are doing better than they would have 10 or even 5 years ago. No greedy middleman.

these gatekeepers of media (mpaa/riaa) have had their day no longer can they control all media as we can now bypass their mafia racketeering style of business where everyone must pay them monies to produce content. you are no longer needed take you manufactured s**t and fuk off......

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 29 Jan 2008 @ 4:53

nobrainer, the thugs running the media mafia are lawyers. The truth and reality are irrevelant to their case.

If anyone wants to do come complaining that might do you some good. At the 'state of the union address' Bush said he needed to get the bill passed that is coming up in a week, passed. The old "you don't need no stinking warrant" to wiretap etc is expiring. This bill broadens their powers not lessens the powers. I believe any government policing agency has 'carte blanche' to do what ever they want when ever they want for as long as they want without having to justify their reasoning. It will have to pass the senate first. If you are a voter, contact your senator.